Pookie Crack Cakes: The Family Business That Has Everyone Hooked

Dedra Simmons’ passion for baking birthed Pookie Crack Cakes, a Bronzeville bakery where cakes fly off the shelves (Credit, Nicole Joseph). There’s this saying that goes, “It’s so good it makes you want to slap your momma!”& At Pookie Crack Cakes, while the cakes slap, another kind of “slapping” also happens: cakes flying off the shelves, only to be put back onto the shelves again and selling out daily. When Dedra Simmons started her bakery in 2014, it was a labor of love. A business birthed out of her home that was a passion as she maintained her day job in the pharmaceutical industry. Given the positive response Simmons was receiving from her cakes, she knew she had something special as the demand for her sweet cakes “grew more and more!” she said. Shundell Johnson, Simmons’s brother-in-law, reminisces on their humble beginnings: “It’s a remarkable feeling, coming from a small apartment, where the kitchen was no bigger than a bathroom. To come from that to where we are now is a huge accomplishment. We’re here now, and we’re going to be here for a while!” Just as the cakes gained popularity, so did their name.& Some questioned, “Why the name?”&...